Category: Be fully present

Being joyful in an uncertain world

Karl Duffy4 Comments

The last sentence in this quote has become quite famous as a way of navigating the inevitable ups and downs of this life:

All life is sorrowful; there is however an escape from sorrow; the escape is nirvana – which is a state of mind or consciousness, not a place somewhere, like heaven. It is right here, in the midst of the turmoil of life. It is the state you find when you are no longer driven to live by compelling desires, fears, and social commitments, when you have found your center of freedom and can act by choice out of that. Voluntary action out of this center is the action of the bodhisattvas – joyful participation in the sorrows of the world. 

Joseph Campbell, The Power of Myth

Don’t rush to interpret what is going on

Karl Duffy4 Comments

We like to live in our heads – our thinking minds – and we presume that this gives us the best information about the world, However, our refuge should be in moment-to-moment direct sensing of experience. We are patient, not  rushing to interpret or make judgments as to how our life is going: 

The instruction and teaching of the actual body is the harbour and the weir.

This is the most important thing in the world.

It is beyond explanation

We just accept it with respect and gratitude

Dogen

 

We are not our thoughts

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A way that can be articulated is not a permanent Way,

and names that can be designated are not permanent labels.

Wen Tzu, Daoist text attributed to follower of Lao Tzu, pre 55 BC

The image of self we carry around

Karl Duffy2 Comments

In order to change our mode of action,

we must change the image of ourselves that we carry within us.

Moshe Feldenkreis

In this ordinary life

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On Sunday during his sermon in Bolton Abbey,  Fr Michael said that an awareness of goodness can strike at any moment, cutting through our complacency and reminding us that, deep down, there is wonder at the heart of our experience, even  when we struggle and cannot see it.  He saw it in the tender care of a cow for its new-born calf. Merton saw it in the swallows flight:

There are days when I am convinced that Heaven starts already, now, in this ordinary life, just as it is, in all its incompleteness, yet, this is where Heaven starts. See within yourself, if you can find it. I walked through the field in front of the house, lots of swallows flying, everywhere! Some very near me. It was magical.

We are already one, yet we know it not

Thomas Merton,

This day (this month) contains all

Karl Duffy2 Comments

Drink your tea slowly and reverently,

as if it as the axis on which the world revolves

Thich Nhat Hanh

Zen teaches that our approach to today determines our whole approach to life.

The Japanese call this attitude Ichi-nichi issho:

‘Each day is a lifetime.’

Philip Toshio Sudo, Zen 24/7